PLYMOUTH, Mich. It's late in the first period on a snowy Thursday and Hamilton's Darnell Nurse is taking care of business for his Sault St Marie Greyhounds.

The Hounds, who are leading the Ontario Hockey League west division with a 26-8-1-4 record, are on a power play against the hometown Plymouth Whalers. The matinee crowd of 1,355 is small, but enthusiastic, at the Compuware Arena in this small Michigan burgh, 30 minutes west of Detroit.

The Soo captain has the puck at the left point and feathers a pass to forward Andrew Fritsch in the corner. Fritsch centres a pass that's eventually batted into the net by club leading scorer Sergey Tolchinsky. It's the Russian sniper's 21{+s}t goal and it comes just as the buzzer sounds ending the first period.

Strangely, the goal is originally announced as unassisted. Fritsch later gets credited for an assist; but for some reason Nurse does not.

As the game wears on, so does the Hounds' big and lanky No. 25. He appears to be on the ice every second shift, playing both the power play and the penalty kill. In the second period, the 6-foot-4, 190-pound Nurse — the son of former Hamilton Tiger-Cat Richard Nurse — takes a gloved shot to the chin from the Whalers' Liam Dunda. It's clearly a roughing or interference penalty. Nurse doesn't retaliate, although he is clearly angry. But he chirps the official aplenty back on the bench. But he doesn't miss a shift.

The Greyhounds protect a 2-1 lead into the final minute of the third period. But the Whalers, who are on the power play and pull their goaltender for an extra attacker, score the equalizer with a six-on-four advantage with less than a minute to play.

The home side, which pots two power play goals on the afternoon, will go on to score a 3-2 victory in a six-round shootout. Nurse doesn't get a shootout chance, one of the few times he doesn't take the ice at a pivotal moment in the contest.

The Hounds, who dominated most of the contest, outshot the Whalers 34-31 and deserved the win, earn an important road point.

Nurse earns another chance to show why the Edmonton Oilers' selected the St. Thomas More grad seventh overall in the 2013 NHL draft.

Postgame, Nurse is upbeat.

"I think the game went pretty well. We didn't get the result that we wanted, but I felt we were all over them for a majority of the game," he said.

Nurse said the extra ice time has forced him to simplify his game. And he has adjusted to his role as a leader.

"It's been pretty easy to adjust to. If you just come to work every day and do everything you need to, to get better, it makes it a lot easier and a lot more fun."

One thing that wasn't fun was being left off Team Canada for the World Junior Hockey Championship. Many casual observers were shocked that Nurse didn't make the squad.

He admits he was disappointed not to get the call.

"It was something that was completely out of my control. But it's over. And it's not something I'm going to look back on and worry about at all, really."

But is he watching the tournament?

"I haven't really had the chance to watch too many games because we've been playing. It was definitely disappointing to me to not get that call, but they (Hockey Canada) have a job and it is pick that team. You have to have all the respect in the world for them and they have that job for a reason.

"All I can do is play here in Sault Ste Marie and worry about how we're doing this year."

After attending Oilers training camp this past fall, Edmonton sent Nurse, who will turn 19 next month, back for his third season of junior with the Soo. Nurse has, in turn, turned into an impact player as one of the best defencemen in the OHL.

With the OHL trading deadline of Jan. 10 just a week away, there is speculation that league powerhouses Erie, Oshawa or London will try to trade for a dominant defenceman to gear up for a Memorial Cup run.

But Soo GM Kyle Dubas said Nurse, who has nine goals and 26 points in 38 games this season, isn't going anywhere.

And it's not just because of the number of minutes he logs for the Hounds, it's the quality of minutes he plays.

"He (Nurse) is such a pivotal player for us. He logs a lot of minutes and he logs the toughest minutes in the league by a pretty substantial margin. The quality of competition he faces is superior to anyone else in our league, particularly any other defencemen in our league.

"To be able to fill those minutes would be so difficult. So his value to us is so incredibly high, it's tough to really put words to it," Dubas adds.

Nurse still needs to put weight on to fill out his frame. He hopes to get up to 210 over the summer. But he no longer appears to be a gangly kid on the ice.

He is playing with confidence, rarely putting his team in trouble with a wrong pass.

In the Plymouth contest Nurse retrieves the puck in his own zone and skates up the middle of the ice with it, crossing the Whaler blue line to set up another power play opportunity.

His father may have played receiver, but Nurse is clearly confident quarterbacking the Soo offence.

"Looking at him it is just easy to play with him. It's just keeping the game simple and moving pucks. I think I'm the same way. For us it's just simple hockey," he said.

Gudbranson said Nurse feels more comfortable on the ice.

"I remember my first year playing with him last year, he was a bit following the puck. But since then you just see the maturity and experience set in, he has really come into his own. It's great to see. You can see why the Oilers picked him seventh overall," he said.

Nurse's game isn't perfect.

Dubas said the Oilers want him to stay away from the boards and protect the centre of the defensive zone more.

And the Soo would like to see him cut down on his minor penalties. His fight total is down as well. But that's because the Soo can't afford him to be in the penalty box.

"He is the best defenceman in the league," Dubas insists. "I'm biased, but I've seen every other defenceman in the league. He logs between 25 to 30 minutes a night for us and always against the other team's best players. No exception. No easy shifts. And he is having an excellent season.

"We're a young team leading our division and lot of that has to do with Darnell's leadership.

"I don't know if there is anyone more valuable in the league. I would put all of my money on the fact there isn't anyone than Darnell Nurse, because of what he does for us."

Hamiltonians who want to see Darnell Nurse's development for themselves have an opportunity this weekend. Nurse is expected to be in the lineup Sunday when Sault Ste Marie visits the Mississauga Steelheads. Game time at Hershey Centre is 2 p.m. The game is also slated for broadcast on Cogeco community channel 23 in Burlington and Oakville.